Dems Starting to Realize That Supporting Obama's Agenda Could Be Hazardous to Their Jobs

Peter Wehner looks at what he describes as the "weight around Democrats' ankles" - Obama's agenda:

Democratic lawmakers are also starting to voice their disenchantment with the head of their party. Sen. Byron Dorgan, (D-N.D.), said about Obama on health care, "the timing wasn't good." Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who described health care reform as on "life support," complained that in his State of the Union address, Obama "should have been more clear . . . because that is what it is going to take if it is at all possible to get it done." She added, "Mailing in general suggestions, sending them over the transom, is not necessarily going to work." And for good measure she said the president's criticism of the Senate was "a little strange, a little odd."

Obama has also been rebuked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi several times. Early in January, reminded that candidate Obama promised all health care negotiations would be broadcast on C-SPAN, Pelosi dismissively said, "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail." And in response to Obama's admission to House Republicans that health care involved "a messy process," Pelosi shot back, "The American people don't care about process." And Pelosi dissented from Obama's call for a three-year freeze on some categories of federal spending, saying that it should cover defense spending as well.

Meanwhile, the president's cap-and-trade proposal is languishing in the Senate, where it is unlikely to ever see the light of day. Guantanamo Bay remains open even though Obama, in one of the first acts of his presidency, declared it would be closed within a year.

In sum: the Obama presidency is seeing its influence and prestige drain away at an unusually rapid rate. It is hard to recall another president who, this early in his tenure, had encountered this much trouble, including the hapless Jimmy Carter, and the more resourceful Bill Clinton, who won re-election only after significantly adjusting the direction of his presidency in the aftermath of his troubled opening act.

Clinton's mid-term correction didn't come in time to help House members or Senators in vulnerable districts, however, and it is rapidly dawning on many Democrats -- especially ones up for re-election in 2010 -- that hitching their fortunes to the president's unpopular agenda is not only unwise; it might well be political suicide. Their survival increasingly depends on pursuing an agenda different than, and sometimes at odds with, the president of their own party.

The true believers, like Nancy Pelosi who comes from a very safe Democrat district, still insist on pushing Obama's agenda even if it means the lost of dozens of seats. I'm not sure she's be so insistent if it might mean the loss of HER seat.

The liberal agenda is in trouble and rightfully so. Three key races have been lost by Democrats since Obama was elected and there's more trouble on the horizon. I don't think the Obama agenda is the hill a lot of Democrats want to die on.